Near the end of 2007, I went to Budapest to the newly-opened Crytek satellite studio to give the Level Designers there hands-on CryEngine training. After shipping Crysis, it was announced that they were looking for people to go to Budapest to work on the Crysis Expansion and having already fallen in love with the city, I jumped at the chance.

Working on Crysis Warhead was the most fun I've had working on a game. Since we already knew what had been well-received in Crysis (and what hadn't) it was all about cranking up the dial on what worked and spending time plugging the holes.

Adapt or Perish

“The most awe-inspiring level starts off with you fighting Nanosuits, then moves into a remarkable hovercraft chase over frozen seas [...] after which the level is punctuated by Korean battles against a goliath Hunter, squad combat against aliens, and a fight with another Hunter that puts the closing boss of the original to shame. It's a frenzy of intelligent and original level design, far away from the Far Cry model that Crysis aped.”

I was moved onto this level to script it as people had been shuffled around and it was behind schedule. The artwork had mostly been done, but I did make alterations and additions (such as flanking routes) to try to make the level less linear. I also created all of the scripted sequences as the cinematic team was swamped with work.